Does designing a large academic library Web site for an imaginary person seem a sensible thing to do? As a reference librarian and member of the Web team of the Gerstein Science Information Centre (Gerstein Library), that is exactly what this author set out to do in May 2005. She proposed that the best way to ensure that the Web site meets the needs of the more than 62,000 students, faculty, and staff was to focus on the needs of Cindy Lee, a fictitious individual and design tool known as a "persona." This persona was created to represent the goals and personal characteristics of real users and to put design assumptions into perspective.